


Radioactive (Welcome to the New Age)

by CoaxionUnlimited



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Also Sort of Steampunk, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Elves are Jerks, Gen, M/M, Sort of Post-Apocalyptic, Zombies, gigolas bang 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 07:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1932006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoaxionUnlimited/pseuds/CoaxionUnlimited
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where Sauron's power had a much more visible effect, Legolas finds himself on a quest to save his world from the forces of evil. On the way, he learns about the world outside of his forest, finds out something about himself, and maybe even falls in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Radioactive (Welcome to the New Age)

**Author's Note:**

> All thanks to Tosquinha - it is her beautiful, beautiful art that enriches this story (and motivated me when the going got hard). Thanks also to my beta, who knows who she is.

 

    Legolas’ first steps into Rivendell were marked by awe.

It was not at all like the Greenwood. Rivendell’s arches were perfect, the trees engineered beyond even the slightest suggestion of a flaw. Legolas could not imagine how many weeks of careful engineering it would take to convince even one of the Greenwood’s trees to curve like that, to surrender itself to become part of a greater whole instead of standing proud and wild on its own. He had once thought of his father’s halls as the most beautiful in the elven kingdoms, but under the immaculate trees of Rivendell home seemed far away, small and shabby.

He shook his head.

Just because Lord Elrond has been the first to engineer trees that would purify the air, just because many regarded him as the savior of the elven race (and if not him, then Lady Galadriel, who had found a way to keep the water clean), that did not mean that taming the Greenwood was any less of a mighty task. Thranduil had held the forest for two thousand years against Dol Guldur - there was no reason that his son should not walk with pride under Rivendell’s trees.

With that, the walk to Elrond’s councilroom became easier. The revelation of its occupants was not.

There were more mortals than elves in the room, for pity’s sake! Two hobbits, one old and propped on a chair and the other young and dark haired, worrying a gas mask between his fragile fingers as though he had never seen one before in his life. Two men, one obviously the fosterling of Elrond, marked by his ease under the ceilings of Lorien. The other, marked just as tellingly by his unease, his fingers over an elegant mask at his side as though waiting to pull it on at any moment, obviously uncomfortable with his face exposed to the air, must have come from one of the kingdoms. Gondor, perhaps? Legolas had never been particularly concerned with the affairs of the lesser races, but he did remember something about the men of Rohan being particularly unsociable. And in the corner stood the great meddler, the wizard Mithrandir.

And finally, there was a dwarf. A dwarf, and one of their abominations.

Legolas had heard tell of the dwarven abominations, the monsters they made of metal, with their treacherous resemblance to living beings. But he had never thought to see one. At first glance, it might almost have passed for a living being, with so much care had the dwarven smiths shaped it. But on second glance, it was evident that it was machine more than mortal. The joints were visible, its bright green eyes gleamed less with the light of life and more with the light of a gem, and the beard that the dwarven smiths had seen fit to include was made of curling copper strips.

The sound of Lord Elrond’s voice brought Legolas back from his shock.

“Young hobbit,” he said softly, “Do you have no idea what you carry?”

The younger of the two shook his head, shrinking back into his seat. His fingers were twitching, playing with something. A trinket, perhaps?

“That, Frodo,” the wizard grumbled, “is the first and greatest of the rings of power.”

Oh. No trinket then. Legolas knew that his eyes were growing wider, but he could not help it. The One Ring!

“That is the source of the Dark Lord Sauron’s power, the object which made him able to tear apart the seas and the skies. It was that little ring which tore our skies in two, which unleashed the dreadful virus that turned the elves of old into the servants of evil, which defiles the corpses of the dead and makes them rise to fight the very people that they sacrificed themselves to defend. It is that ring which burned the fertile plains of Rohan and Gondor to ash, which sent dragons into the mountains of the dwarves and defiled the woods of the elves. It is the source of an evil so great that it very nearly broke this world, and it must be destroyed.”

“Must it?” the man from Gondor demanded, his fingers closing tight over his golden mask. “If it can create so much evil, surely it can be used to undo some of the harm that it has wrought. The need for such an object is great, especially in Gondor, where the dead threaten to overtake-”

“Do you not think,” Lord Elrond cut him off, “that has not been tried? Once, Sauron offered rings to the kings of man, told them that the power to shape the land would be theirs for the taking, and all nine kings took him up on his offer, meaning to use the power to restore their lands. But every time they used their power, they were thrown deeper and deeper into the grasp of Sauron and in the end, they lost their own will entirely and succumbed to the will of the dark one, and in their wake, their kingdoms fell to ruin and the people therein fell to the Virus.”

The man subsided. The table sat silent, stunned by the outburst.

“Then it must be destroyed,” the dwarf rumbled.

“Yes, it must.” Elrond agreed. “But that shall be no easy task. It can only be destroyed in the fires of the mountain where it was born - Mt. Doom, which lies in the heart of Mordor.”

“That is impossible,” the talkative man snapped. “There is no way that any being could survive the disease-filled miasma of Mordor, and even if they could, they must contend with the armies of Mordor. It cannot be done!”

“Have a little faith, Boromir,” the wizard commented from the corner. “I am sure that something can be contrived to keep us from Sauron’s eye.”

—

When the quest had been declared, the abomination (not even the proper dwarf!) had been the first to declare that he would go. Of course, Legolas had insisted on going after that. He could not allow the elves to be unrepresented in this quest, and certainly could not chance that some unliving thing would come into possession of the One Ring.

Alas, those concerns ended up second fiddle to survival barely a few hours into the quest.

The Greenwood was wild and perilous also, but it was a familiar sort of peril. He’d had little idea how easy it was to live under the Greenwood’s protective boughs until he stepped out of them. For the journey south, towards the pass through Caradhras and Mordor beyond, they had to cross through the empty stretches of the badlands. The earth was scorched and dry, the few animals that roamed across it wary and vicious. There were a few wolves, a deer or two, perhaps, but nothing Legolas could bring himself to shoot, and little vegetation that anyone would trust to eat.

Sauron’s poison had sunk itself deep into the land, and where there was water still left, it was often dark and reeking of miasma. Elrond had given them a device to purify water, but had warned them that it would attract attention - as a single candle in a darkened hall might draw the eye. So they usually stopped at the first body of pure water which they encountered, and although it made for some early nights, it made for many more treks deeper and deeper into the depths of night.

Mithrandir was uncannily good at detecting those places which had escaped corruption, but even he could not find safety where there was none, and as the days dragged on and on, as their path brought them nearer to Mordor, there seemed to be fewer and fewer places where they could find rest and drink safely.

It wore on everyone, especially the young hobbits, but though tempers grew shorter, and a few quarrels got rough enough that Mithrandir deigned to intervene, the exhausted horror of the land brought the Fellowship closer together. After a few days, Legolas found himself more attached to his companions than he had ever thought he could with a band of mortals.

The men were pleasant enough, and he grew to be fast friends with Aragorn, whose stern, responsible demeanor reminded Legolas of several of the Greenwood’s older guard captains, those so used to taking care of others that they had forgotten where their duties ended and their lives began. But Aragorn truly loved and knew the wild, and he knew also the old stories of the elves, and so their friendship grew from terse conferences about the dangers of the journey into deeper reminiscences of the times where the world was green. Boromir too was good company and useful, making up for his lack of practical knowledge about the wild with his sheer, stubborn determination to protect the rest of the company from harm. He spent more time in the company of the dwarf than he did with Legolas, and still more time shepherding the hobbits.

Ah! The hobbits. They were full of a child’s innocence and wonder. All four of them chafed at the masks, and it was not an infrequent occurrence to hear one of the younger two hobbits complain about their mask, how it chafed, how it made it impossible to smoke any pipeweed, how Legolas wasn’t wearing one. At the last, Legolas did have to speak up.

****

“I am not wearing a mask,” Legolas said firmly, “because elves are better protected from the miasma than hobbits.”

He left out the elven belief that it was the blessing of Yavanna which kept elvenkind from the sickness, her blessing given only to her true children. He had a feeling that Pippin would want to know why elves alone received this blessing, and that his father’s answer - that elves alone were the true living beings on the planet and all else was but an animal with pretensions, or worse - stone, would not pacify the hobbit as it had a younger Legolas.

It seemed Mithrandir knew what he had kept silent, if the wizard’s knowing glance was any indication.

Speaking of Mithrandir, it was at his insistence that the company keep to the path rather than adventuring, as the hobbits seemed to wish. Frodo and his companion Sam, were more inclined to obey, but even they looked at the prospect of exploring the land with wistful hope. Merry and Pippin, especially Pippin, were always wandering - often losing sight of the path without quite meaning to. It was Boromir who most often retrieved the lost hobbits, and it was Boromir who had taken it upon himself to teach them at least the basics of defending themselves. Wherever they had come from, it must have been well protected, for all four of them acted as though they had never seen a gas mask in their lives, and none of them liked to wear them, even if they had been informed time and again about the dangers of the Virus and the Miasma both. They had obviously never seen an orc, and Legolas both dreaded and hoped for the day when they would finally understand exactly what horrors their masks were keeping them from.

It was, actually, the dwarven machine who surprised Legolas the most.

He would not call them friends, by any means. Indeed, Legolas had spent most of the journey carefully maintaining a silence between them, in order to preserve the genial atmosphere of the Fellowship. But he had proven to be, if not tolerable, then at least more than a simple machine.

No being who could make Boromir laugh around the fire with a silly tale of a drunken king, a barmaid, her frying pan, and two extremely disgruntled chickens could ever be dubbed mere machine. And although he knew, deeply and rationally, that nothing made of stone and lifeless metal could ever truly feel, the fondness that the dwarf displayed for the young hobbits was so obvious that Legolas could not quite bring himself to believe that it was faked. He was not watching the dwarf, as such.

He was just . . .

Curious. Not enough to risk the end of their ceasefire by initiating a conversation, but enough, at least, to consider it.

“What are you,” he would demand, if he ever did break their silence. “Mortal or machine?”

—

****  


Alas, nothing, not even careful, well-intentioned silence, can last forever.

Especially not on a perilous quest that led deep through the wilds.

Sauron, as Mithrandir muttered to himself whenever he thought anyone might be listening, could not have seen them yet. He was still asleep, and his dominion over the land was not yet so absolute that any who passed under his eye would be revealed to him. That did not mean that the wilds were safe for wanderers, as Aragorn had been known to mutter back, and as all of the nine had found themselves reminding Pippin when waking him for watch.

None of the hobbits truly understood the dangers of the wild, and although, bless them, they did their best to listen to those who were more experienced in the ways of travel, the true peril of their quest did not quite sink in until the first ambush. And at the time, Legolas was too busy fending off the dead to attempt to reassure them.

It had been an ordinary enough morning on the road. They had ended up in a ravine, on the path to a spring Aragorn had heard of and Mithrandir had confirmed, which happened to be mostly along their way. No one liked the confining stone walls, not even the machine, who was usually enthusiastic about stone of any kind, but they had seemed too solid for anything nasty to be concealed in them.

At least, until something had let out a war cry that echoed horribly off the walls of the canyon. By the time Legolas had consciously registered that something was wrong, he had already swept the closest hobbit (Sam, he would remember later) behind him, and fired his first arrow. It struck true, straight through the eye of the dank, shambling thing that had crawled out of an unseen crevice in the rock.

Seconds later, the canyon was teeming with them, a horde of moaning things shambling forward from all sides with surprising speed. The part of Legolas’ brain that was not wholly focused on shooting them noted that they had once been men, probably, judging by their height and their dress. Boromir did not seem affected by them, any more than one was usually affected, his sword strokes had no emotion in them other than the clean pride that any swordfighter must have in their work, so perhaps they were men from Rohan? Or perhaps he had simply not known them.

Sheer chance had him next to the dwarf in the loose circle that the nine formed, the hobbits in the center, naturally. It was, Legolas noted absently, not an unhappy coincidence. Unlike the men, who wore little armor, and thus had to keep the dead at a safe distance for fear of infection, the dwarf was nothing but metal, so he could charge into battle with little fear. By virtue of his grace, the infection of Mordor could not touch him. Still, Legolas preferred to keep the dead at a farther range, for he had no wish to come into contact with Sauron’s evil. Fortunately, with the dwarf fighting next to him, he had no reason to attend to the monsters that escaped his arrows, for they were soon dispatched by the dwarf’s shining axes.

The battle itself went as neatly as a battle can go - an ambush such as this one was the best tactics that the dead could come up with, and there were not so many of them that running out of swords was a possibility. Indeed, when the last of the dead had fallen, and the canyon was reduced again to the uneasy stillness of the wild, he remarked as much to the dwarf before he could stop himself.

“That was a tidy fight.”

“Aye,” the dwarf rumbled back. “If the rest of them go so neatly, then this quest shall be over soon indeed.”

Legolas shot a glance over, perhaps meaning to smile, but his eyes caught on the dwarf’s unnatural emerald gaze, and he remembered that he was talking to an unnatural, ungodly creature, built by mortals as though the god’s craftsmanship was lacking, and the dwarf remembered whatever it was that kept him from talking to elves, and in unison, they looked away from each other.

—

The hobbits were uncharacteristically subdued that night, and Legolas overheard much discussion between them on the battle. One of the more notable exchanges was between Sam and Frodo:

“I must say, Mr. Frodo,” the ginger hobbit remarked, “I was worried about this whole mask thing at first. It’s not quite natural to not breathe the air, as hobbits were meant to do. And it really does make smoking one’s pipe a bit of a trial.”

“It’s better than being one of those things, Sam,” the ringbearer told him, gently.

“I know,” Sam told him softly. “That’s just what I was going to say.”

—

Legolas could ignore the dwarf no longer, but his efforts to learn nothing more about the dwarf, and to speak to him no more than was absolutely necessary, finally failed on the pass of Caradhras, the Redhorn Gate. More accurately, they failed on the path to the pass, for Caradhras had created a defense against the power of Sauron that none could defeat: deep, impenetrable blizzards that made it impossible to see more than a handsbreadth from your face. It was too cold by far for the hobbits, who were used to warmer climes and had never traveled for such lengths. The dwarf did not complain, but the men did.

Legolas could not help but resent them for their fragility.

The sheeting snow might not have been a remarkable sight before Sauron’s first attempt at dominion, but Legolas could not help but marvel at the purity and beauty of the white flakes. The Greenwood was not so far south that it did not receive snow, but it was a rare occurrence, and came falling black from the skies and it heralded a stirring in the forces of evil wherever it landed. It made Thranduil sigh and reminisce whenever it fell, speaking of better days when children would play in white dunes and the sun would sparkle on white drifts.

Legolas had not understood then why his father had been so attached to snow. Now, as the sky clouded with a thousand drops of pure water, he thought that he could see why his father missed it so much.

If he had been traveling alone, he would have pressed on, but the hobbits were shivering, the men were insistent, and eventually, even Mithrandir had to relent.

“I do not like this,” the wizard grumbled, but he did allow the dwarf to lead them to a cave he had somehow detected a few hundred feet back.

Of course, the dwarf was insistent that they try to pass through the mines of Moria.

Legolas objected on principle to more dwarves, and objected further on the basis that he was not quite ready to leave this mountain and the first storm he had experienced in his long life that was completely untainted by evil.

He was overruled by the mortals, of course. He had seen that coming for miles, the literal miles of their trek through the snow.

That did not make the parting sting any less.

So, perhaps, when the dwarf lingered behind in the cave after the others had gone, his fingers resting on the stone of Caradhras, he was more sharp-tongued in response than he might have been otherwise.

“Come along, Dwarf. It was you who demanded that we leave this mountain, why do you linger so inside it? Do you not wish to go to your people?”

The dwarf turned to glare at him, and the sheer fury in the blazing emerald eyes made it difficult to remember that the other was a machine. That the anger he displayed was not something he could truly feel.

“Do not laugh at me, laddie,” the dwarf growled. “My family tells dwarflings tales of gems untainted by dragonfire, of the earth clean and pure and kept from corruption, and this is the first stone I have seen in my life untouched by Sauron’s foul hand.”

Legolas stared at him, biting back the comment he had been about to make, something sarcastic perhaps, about the dwarven fondness for stone.

Instead, he found his mouth moving of its own accord.

“They tell young elves of the days when the sky was unclouded. They used to say that if you looked hard enough, if you found your way to the very top of the tallest mountain, so high even Sauron’s power could not reach, you could look up to the sky and see the stars. They say that we are the children of the light of stars, and yet, I have never seen one. Do not be embarrassed, Master Dwarf, for I can feel nothing on your behalf but gladness that you have found your birthright.”

The dwarf stared at him for a moment, his mouth slightly parted in shock. Legolas stayed too, pinned by the shock of his own boldness and the raw emotion in those bright green eyes.

Then he came back to himself, and darted out of the cave, away from those eyes and from any acknowledgment that a dwarf might understand. From even the idea that he had spoken the deep, sacred longings of his race aloud to a dwarven abomination, of all beings.

—

Moria itself, though Legolas was loath to admit it, very nearly lived up to the dwarf’s glowing words. The small gates opened into a vast, open hall with ceilings so tall that even Mithrandir seemed small beneath them. Upon the opening of the door, something hummed within the walls, and faint blue lights began to glow along the floor, illuminating a path leading down into the depths of the mountain. They illuminated too the fine carvings along the arches, the pure crystal veins in the arches and the deep, geometric angles of the weaving stone paths above their heads.

“I daresay that’s very pretty,” remarked Merry, his hobbit eyes wide in the gloom.

Legolas looked over at the dwarf, expecting him to say something, to gloat over the beauty of his homeland. Instead, he was silent, looking down the path into the depths of the mountain with a troubled expression. Something was amiss here, and perhaps Legolas’ own unease was not a product of the suffocating stone alone. This place, though perhaps possessing a little of its own beauty, was in no way comparable to the pure wildness of Caradhras’ slopes, or even the elegant arches of Elrond’s trees. Elves were not meant to be confined under stone; they were meant for the sky, even if that sky was clouded, and this oppressive semi-darkness was making him uneasy.

Or perhaps that had just been Mithrandir’s reprimand at the gates. The wizard was to be respected, of course, but to insist that he be friends with a dwarf made him wonder about his father’s insistent claims that the wizard was mad. The heavy stone of the walls pressed in around him, and for a fleeting second, he wondered if this stone might in fact drive him mad.

And they would be spending three days in this place!

It only took a couple hours for Legolas to grow weary of the incessant humming behind Moria’s walls. He had thought at first that it was a function of the lights that the dwarves used in the paths, but even in the places where the lights were long since smashed, it droned on.

Legolas thought that he would soon have to give in and ask the dwarf what it was, else the incessant noise would drive him mad. To his surprise, Boromir caved first.

“What is that infernal humming?” the man snapped. “Can it be turned off?”

To Legolas’ surprise, the dwarf took the questioning with good grace.

“It cannot be turned off, unless you would like me to lead you much deeper into this mountain. It is the fans that hum so, Master Boromir, and would that this place were inhabited, I would tell you that you could take your masks off.”

“How could you, in good conscience, say such a thing?”

“We dwarves have long known the secrets of making air safe to breathe, for the earth is dark and deep and digging in her depths is not always safe for mortal beings. It stands to reason that when Sauron poisoned the air, the craftsmen of old would make their own homes safe to breathe in. Alas, this mountain has stood empty for too long, a playground for the dead and the corrupted. Even my kinsmen could not hope to purge this place of evil in so short a time, and as long as evil lurks in this place, it is better to keep the masks on.”

The man looked at him, thoughtful.

“Should we survive this quest and this mountain,” he said, “you must teach me your mechanisms. It would much improve the White City if its people were able to breathe within its walls.”

“My kinsmen would object to revealing those secrets, but I cannot, in good conscience, deny you. Should we survive this quest, I will help your people, I swear it.”

“Thank you, Master Dwarf,” the man said, simply. For a moment, Legolas wondered what good those mechanisms might do his own people. The trees of the Greenwood, though mostly friendly to elvenkind, had never been able to make the air completely safe for breathing. Even in their very heart, most visitors, and even some of the elves, needed to wear masks against the miasma. Legolas had never needed one, for his grace ran strong, but …

It must be nice, to be so sure that one’s subjects were absolutely safe within one’s walls.

****  


“Is it like this also in Erebor?” Aragorn spoke from behind them.

“Yes, indeed,” the dwarf answered. “I have some younger cousins who were well into their first century before they even knew what a gas mask was, like our hobbits.”

“I am sure,” Aragorn said dryly, “that the hobbits are not protected by any trick of machinery. Still, your people are to be envied their technology.”

“That we are,” Gimli said agreeably, “as yours are to be envied their lack of dragons.”

—

Legolas could not help but pity the dwarf a little, half-against his own will, as they ran from the Balrog and ran from the orcs and fled, at last, the mines of Moria.

It was an odd, sharp ache in his chest, resting below his grief for Mithrandir and his worry for the next stage of their journey and for what would become of them without guidance. He had been so obviously grieved to find his dead, the evidence that his old friend had tried to burn the bodies of his family before himself succumbing to the virus, the monster that had become of the dwarf he had told tales of to the hobbits, the gentle knitter and dedicated scribe.

Legolas could wonder that he expected anything or, as the dwarf must be, anyone not to grieve at the death of his kin.

Then again, Gimli was made of metal. Dead, cold earth instead of living flesh.

Then again, that did not seem to matter to the dwarf. He had waxed rhapsodic to the hobbits once, when he was explaining to them why his people wished to reclaim Moria, about how metal was to the dwarfs as alive as the trees were to elves. The hobbits had nodded politely along, but Legolas had gotten the first inkling of understanding then.

The understanding that was now twisting itself into painful sympathy inside his chest. The dwarf that had built him had given Gimli the ability to cry, and seeing the tears trickle down his face as he faced off against the monster that had once been his friend, Legolas finally understood. The answer to that first question that he had wanted to ask Gimli, so long ago. “Are you alive, or are you a machine?” he had wanted to ask.

It wasn’t a question that could be answered, not really.

Just better understood.

Alive and machine, to dwarfs, were perhaps not as exclusive as they were to elves.

It was that thought that made Legolas reach out to the dwarf, drag him off of his kinsmen’s tomb and out of the mountain.

It was that thought that made Legolas think back on the final request that Mithrandir had made of them. He had wanted an elf and a dwarf to be friends. Legolas had thought the idea ridiculous then, not least because he doubted that the dwarf would be able to do anything of the sort.

Now, racing on to the sanctuary in Lorien, Legolas resolved to try.

—

Friendship should have been more difficult than it was. As things stood, it was almost too easy to like Gimli.

Legolas had been steeling himself to make the first overtures, but it was the dwarf who, in the end, decided to speak.

“I find myself thinking,” he commented on that first night in Lorien, “of Mithrandir’s last request.”

“I think of it too,” Legolas replied, relieved, “And I would like to honor it. Come, Master Dwarf, and walk with me. It has been too long since I stood under living trees.”

Gimli blinked those mechanical eyes, but nodded, and the two of them stepped out of the pavilion where the rest of the company slept, and into the woods of Lorien.

Legolas might have been content to wander in silence on his own. In the presence of another, he found himself speaking.

“I wonder, Master Dwarf, what these trees must look like to you.”

“If you are wondering if I find them beautiful, then I assure you I do. I am not, after all, blind.”

“I never thought you were.”

“Nor did I think that you were blind when you walked through the halls of Moria.”

“Moria was beautiful too, I think. It was the first time I found stone to be as beautiful, almost, as a living thing.”

“I think,” Gimli said, softly, “That that might be the sum of the differences between elves and dwarves. That you find beauty in those things that grow quickly and greenly, and that my people find beauty in that which moves slowly.”

He grinned.

“For immortals, elves seem rather impatient.”

“And for mortals, I have always found dwarves to be startlingly inflexible.”

“Hah! And here I was thinking you would be too diplomatic to banter.”

“Alas, if you wished for diplomacy, you ought have chosen another elf to befriend. Perhaps Lord Elrond? It is said that he has perfected the art of talking to mortals.”

“If I wanted diplomacy, I could have stayed in Erebor. Last I heard, Dain was attempting to learn it. I could have helped him to practice it, instead of trekking through bare earth and monster-infested mountains.”

“If he is hoping to sway my father, he may need more than diplomacy.”

“To sway Lord Thranduil would take a miracle, I think.”

“I think it would take an act of Manwe, complete with thunderstrikes and firestorms and perhaps a manifestation to make him even consider the idea of negotiations with dwarvenkind.”

“I had an uncle like that, once.”

“Yes. I think they’ve met.”

“And here we are, where I think both of us feared that we would end up. Our races have not been kind to one another.”

“They were not. And yet we are not them, and we may yet learn from their mistakes.”

“Aye,” the dwarf sighed, looking up at the roof of the forest. “Would that it were that easy.”

The two of them walked in silence for a few moments longer, before Legolas said,

“Very well then. If a difference in aesthetics is all that separates our people, we ought to search for what is common to us elsewhere. Come, Gimli. I will show you our finest craftsmanship, since I have heard that that is what dwarves value above all else, and we shall see if we may yet find some common ground.”

“I will look forward to it, and since I had no time to do the same in Khazad-Dum, I will tell you about the life that is concealed within stone and metal, and how we find the beauty there.”

“There is life in stone? I had thought it dead.”

“Dead? Is that what the elves see when they look at the earth?”

“What else is there to see?”

“Everything.” Gimli bent down, and grabbed a small pebble from the path. “It takes Mahal, in his forge at the center of the world, longer than the life of a dwarf or the life of an elf, or even the combination of the two, to fashion even one of these small stones. They are born in fire, and though it may take millenia, they find their way close enough to the surface that they can be picked up by one of the ephemeral beings on its surface. Rock, Master Elf, will be here when we are gone, and the same rock that your father tread will remain long past when he will decide to leave this world.”

“It will have to wait a long time for that.”

“And it will wait, patient and unchanging, unless a craftsman should decide to shape it, and then it will hold that form for ages to come. Khazad-Dum has stood as you saw it since before Sauron came to be, and when he leaves again, it shall remain. That is comforting to me, and comforting to all who walk in its halls. We may not last for all time, but that which we build will.”

“So it is with these trees as well. They may not last beyond my lifespan, but the youngest of them was planted before I was born, and it may take them a century, even two, to reach their full age. Look.” Legolas pointed out a mallorn standing tall and proud in the middle of the clearing. “That one has stood, like your halls, since before Sauron rose. It still sheds its leaves in the fall, but it grows them back every year. Trees are faithful.”

“I thought it strange once, that elves chose to rely on trees to keep their air pure. A single fire could tear down all you have built for centuries, and expose your whole world to the miasma again.”

“As a single earthquake, or a single dragon could tear down yours.”

“Point taken. Although I do wish you would not speak of dragons.”

“I will leave off of dragons if you will promise not to speak of spiders.”

“Why? They are harmless enough.”

“Perhaps the spiders that dwell in your mountains are harmless. The spiders of the Greenwood could swallow you in a single bite!”

“My father once spoke of giant spiders in your wood. I thought then that he was joking, but I see he was not. Your home is dangerous indeed.”

“That it is. Anyone who wishes to live in the Greenwood must be prepared to guard themselves against evil. The battles we have fought so far have not been my first fights against the forces of Sauron, nor, if I should return, will they be my last. But, do not mistake me, our home is worth defending. It is one of the last truly wild spaces in this world, untouched by Sauron, much though he tries. Our trees may not be as ancient or as pure as those of Lorien, but they are just as beautiful. If you listen in the Greenwood, you can hear them whisper.”

“About what? Bark?”

“Why should trees speak about a specific thing, like you or I might? They say simply that they are alive, and that they are not alone, which is, really, the purpose of those conversations that we hold as well.”

“Alive, and together, then. Your trees may have a point, elf.”

—

It was several more days before Legolas could gather the courage to ask Gimli the question that had been on his mind since they had begun to make friends with each other.

“Were you born as you are now?”

“Speak plainly, elf. I do not take your meaning.”

“Were you always made of metal?”

Gimli snorted, so full of mirth that he nearly toppled off his stump.

“Always? How would that come to pass, pray tell? Do elves truly believe that some of our children simply pop out of the womb made of metal, and that families accept this?”

“No. If you were to ask a typical elf what he thought of you, he would wonder that you speak at all. To us, beings made of metal can be no more than constructs, built to do tasks that no living being would want to accomplish. And yet, you are not so.”

“Ah. That explains many things.” The dwarf glanced up at the roof of the forest, at the glimpses of bruised sky beyond, and said, “An age ago, many dwarves might have agreed with you. And to answer your question, I was not born like this. I was born on the road, with weak lungs and a feeble body. Had I stayed as I was, bound to flesh, I would surely have perished.

But my father was even more stubborn than most dwarves might be, and he refused to believe that his firstborn child might die, before he had even seen his homeland. And so he went to the forge and he prayed to the god of the dwarves and to Durin, our great ancestor, and he set to work. He did not leave the forge for seven days and seven nights, and on each day and each night, I grew weaker. My mother said that I fought for each breath of air, and that she was sure that I would lose before my father was done, but I am a dwarf to the core, and I fought hard enough, and long enough, that my father was able to complete this body for me.

He refuses to speak of how my soul managed to leave the flesh for this form, in which I could thrive. I suspect it was Mahal’s blessing, and I suspect that had I been any older, it might not have worked. But I was saved, and once the other dwarves saw that I was alive and well within my shell, they thought me a miracle. For decades, ever since we had been driven out of our mountain, our children had been born with weak lungs, and more of them died than lived beyond the age of two or three.

 ****

It was my mother, in the end, who ended up making more of these shells, for my father was preparing to head to Erebor, and was too busy to see that more were needed. Our children, Master elf, may not have been born strong, but with the chance that my mother gave them, they began to thrive. And then, we were back in our mountain, and although more children were born strong then, it was still a good thing. This is why you will see beings of my kind in the dwarven world, because they were needed.”

“That is remarkable,” Legolas said, simply.

“Aye. That it is. I have always been more of a wonder in my own home than an outcast, but my father said that others might feel differently. I had not, until this moment, considered it.”

“To be fair,” Legolas said, trying not to act as though he were not still reeling from the conversation, as if he weren’t suddenly guilty about being the one to shatter Gimli’s interpersonal innocence, “elven children have never been subject to the same risks. As soon as we became aware that Sauron’s power might be able to influence the unborn, elvenkind created a method to shield them.”

“I take it your birth was not natural then.”

“Not as some might define it. Trees will shelter unborn elves as well as any womb.”

“Might that work for any other race?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps no other race would be able to inhabit a metal body, for no race is connected to the earth as the dwarves are.”

“Aye. Perhaps. And perhaps, when we return, we may devise some mechanism to do away with all of these perhapses.”

“That, Master Dwarf, would be an excellent idea.

—

Leaving Lorien was difficult, as only a few things in Legolas’ life had been. Lorien was home, or close enough to it that parting from it was not dissimilar from leaving home, as he had done so many weeks ago.

It was no less difficult for the fact that the rest of the Fellowship was, in one way or another, troubled. Mithrandir’s passing had shaken them all, but the troubled looks on the faces of all but Merry and Pippin were more than that.

The only consolation was that he was walking from Lorien with a new friend. Gimli was easy to talk to in the way that most of his elven friends had never been. The wisdom of Mithrandir in recommending their friendship had been, as ever, unparalleled.

Except for the issue of boats.

“I cannot see,” Legolas said, amused, “what you find so objectionable about boats.”

“Boats,” Gimli grumbled, “are devilish instruments of torture. They are not sturdy enough to hold up a proper dwarf, nor are they wide enough to comfortably sit in, and they wobble.”

“You cannot expect me to believe that your mining contraptions never wobble. I saw them once, long ago, with their flimsy ropes and odd little wheels.”

“Ah, but they do not wobble! Not with a sturdy dwarf weighing them down, at least.”

“I cannot imagine, then, that they would be pleasant for an elf to travel in.”

“I cannot imagine how you would find an elf that would want to. You lot are all too attached to the open air, even when that air is trying to kill you. Not that this water is much better.”

“Here, it lies pure.”

“But here, it is under the arm of the Lady of Lorien. I think that the further we go downstream, the worse it will be.”

“You are right. But for now, at least, we are safe.”

“Yes, Master Elf. For now.”

Legolas looked up to the sky, under a thin gray sheaf of clouds, and said, with no little foreboding,

“Yes. For now.”

—

“Surely you do not tire, Gimli,” Legolas called, only half-teasing, as the dwarf chased after them over the scorched hills. “You are the only one of us without muscles to feed, after all.”

“I do not have flesh to tire, aye, but I was not built for speed! My father always told me that dwarves were not meant to run. And now, when I find it necessary, I wish that someone had convinced him otherwise.”

“When you return, you might mention it to him.”

“I will tell him that he ought to have built me with the ability to turn off my ears, that I need not be mocked by every passing elf!”

“And I,” Aragorn interrupted from ahead, “would tell you both not to waste your breath but to make haste.”

Reluctantly, Legolas acquiesced, and turned to follow Aragorn along the path of the Uruk-Hai. It was odd, he thought. It was not like him to find chatter more interesting than duty.

Why, he had not thought of neglecting his duties for another being since Tauriel . . .

Tauriel.

Oh, stars.

Legolas did not trip over his own feet, nor did he slow his pace, but it was a near thing, and he had tilted enough to make Gimli call,

“Are you alright, elf? The ground here is perfectly flat.”

“You, Master Dwarf,” his mouth replied on autopilot, “may not mock me for tripping until you are able to walk over a perfectly benign forest floor without falling.”

“Trees do not like me, as they do you. It seems to me that they move their roots out of the way of your light elven feet.”

“Then perhaps you should lighten your own feet. If you did not trod over them like an Mûmakil, mayhap they would not decide to trip you.”

“I doubt that. I think your trees are simply-”

“It has not been yet two minutes,” Aragorn growled, “and you two are nattering like magpies! At this rate, you will alert the Uruks to our presence with your voices alone!”

“Aye, aye,” Gimli grumbled, and Legolas nodded, silently vowing to control his tongue. Perhaps if he were careful enough with his conversation this . . . attachment to Gimli would fade.

  Alas, their quiet tongues did nothing to keep them from the (admittedly keen) eyes of the men of Rohan.

The Riders were a sight to behold, even as the world grew dimmer with the onset of night. Their great mechanical war-beasts held them several feet above even Legolas’ eyes, and if he had not known already of the heavy war armor that the men of Rohan favored, he would have thought them constructs like Gimli - for even their eyes were hidden behind thick, unyielding metal.

This didn’t keep them from speaking, of course, though it would have been for the better if it had.

 

“What is this?” the man’s voice was tinny and hollow, as though it echoed around once or twice in the suit before reaching the air, “An elf, a man and a dwarven robot. One presumes that the last is a pack-slave, for-”

The rational part of Legolas’ brain, the part that told him that getting attached to a dwarf would probably end in being disowned, and also the part that told him he would do better not to attack the leader of an army, proposed a simple plan. Stay quiet. Be calm. Do not allow yourself to be provoked.

The rest of Legolas was swinging his bow forward and shoving the tip of an arrow against one of the slits in the man’s visor.

“Should one more word fall from your lips, you will find that your armor is no object for my arrows. The dwarf is our travelling companion and as worthy of respect as any man I have ever met!”

Behind him, a low humming rumble ran through the ranks of the metal horses, and Aragorn stepped forward, as though to put himself between Legolas and the man.

“Stand down my friends,” the man said, “I perhaps deserve the elf’s threat. I have long heard tell of the enmity between elves and dwarvenkind, and I found myself concerned that two of them should travel together. But as we all know, the road makes friends of us all, and it is no odder that love should grow between an elf and a dwarf than that love should be fostered between us.”

Love? Legolas thought. Surely there is another word-

“That is all very well,” Aragorn said firmly, “But we are travelling in pursuit of a group of Uruk-Hai, and we would ask your help.”

—

The thing was, Legolas mused gloomily, sharpening an arrow on the floor of a chamber in Edoras, and thinking of a threat that, only weeks before, he would have made for no being, mortal or otherwise, he had not thought himself the type to fall in love with anyone but a perfectly respectable elf.

He was not Tauriel, woodself and fighter, whose sheer stubbornness had taken her where elves twice her rank could not even begin to tread.

He was no Arwen, of whom tales had reached even the Greenwood. They told of her simple, indomitable spirit, of her joyous, all-consuming love, and of the defiance that sparked in her like a blazing fire.

He was Legolas, son of Thranduil, who had never in his life (except once or twice at Tauriel’s behest) defied his father, even when, as Tauriel was prone to reminding him, he should have. He had never loved any being, not even Tauriel, deeply enough to spite duty and parentage, and yet, here he was.

In love.

With a dwarf.

And one made of metal too.

Neither of the last felt like any object to Legolas, but his father, surely, would see them both, and he would rage.

And then what?

He did not even know, Legolas thought gloomily, whether Gimli even felt anything comparable to what he did. Oh, there was regard, of course. Their friendship was, regrettably, mutual. But love? Love in a romantic rather than a platonic sense?

Legolas could not know.

Nor could he adequately explain how he found beauty in a dwarven creation of all things. He could say that he did, of course. He could say that their craftsmanship was beyond perfect, that those glowing emerald eyes had held his attention since he first saw them, that the surprising warmth of metal beneath his hand when he leaned on the dwarf was comforting and grounding, and yet.

Love?

So it seemed.

This was unwise. Perhaps the most unwise thing he had ever done. Their friendship alone would have been a blow to Thranduil, perfect as it was, as excellent as a team they made both for banter and for battle. Love would be worse. Love would be much worse, and yet. Here he was.

Gimli could not know, he decided. If the dwarf knew, it would be too tempting to do something rash. Something that he would almost definitely regret. For after the quest, he would return to his old life, as would Gimli. Where there was no place for an errant member of another species.

After they compared notes on where dwarven mechanics and elven biology could meet, of course. And after he brought Gimli with him to Fangorn.

Legolas groaned, quietly, and pressed his head into his hands.

Thranduil would have a fit.

—

Legolas had never enjoyed the eve of a battle.

Helm’s Deep was no exception, even though it was an exception in that he had company. Aragorn had gone off to sort out defenses, with a sort of kingly authority that weighed on his shoulders and tightened his mouth. There was nothing Legolas could say that would ease that particular burden, so he stayed silent, and sat with Gimli. Gimli who was sharpening his axe, and staring out on the battlefield.

“He misses his Lady, does he not?” Gimli commented, his eyes focused on the field beyond.

Grateful for any subject that was not battle, Legolas answered him.

“I think that he does. And what of you, Master Dwarf? Any star of your own skies that you would long to see again before you leave this world?”

“I am no elf,” Gimli rumbled, giving Legolas a surprised glance, “so I would have a jewel of my life, not a star, but in either case, the answer is no. None but my family wait for me in Erebor. What of you?”

“It is the same with me. My friends and family will be the only ones to miss me if I do not return. I worry, though, for the Evenstar and her choice.”

“Why? Her love is hers alone to give and hers alone to reap the consequences and the joys of. Why would you worry for that?”

“Elves love deeply, and as long as Aragorn may live, it will never be as long as she will. She will be alone for longer than she will be happy, and yet . . .”

“Yet?” The dwarf frowned.

“Yet,” Legolas sighed, “She will choose to live with him. To be mortal as he is, to love and live for a short time, rather than be alone for a long one, or wait for an elf whom she might love as she does this man.”

“That is a mighty choice. Must all elves choose so? It seems to be a heavy thing, to decide whether or not you will give up your elven life.”

“No. It is her line’s privilege, and her line’s burden, this ability to choose their own fates. Have you heard the tale of fair Luthien?”

“I have not. That is an elven name, and an elven tale, I must guess.”

“Aye. Luthien was an elf who lived before the time of Sauron, the fairest maiden, it was said, of both men and elves. She fell in love with a man, named Beren, who loved her in return, and when he asked for her hand, her father set him an impossible task. He was told to bring the father a Silmaril, the fairest of all the jewels on the earth.”

“Did he succeed?”

“No. But she followed him on his quest, and together they fought the forces of darkness and did many great deeds. The story that they told upon their return to her father’s castle was such that his heart softened towards them, and he allowed them to marry. Upon their union, they were given the choice of being mortal or elven. It is not recorded what they chose, but such a choice cannot have been easy.”

Legolas glanced out the window of the stronghold and shook his head, quietly.

“Do not listen to me, Gimli. I think too much of the past, for fear of thinking of the future.”

“Aye. I understand what you mean. Do not fear for me tomorrow, my friend, for I am entirely too sturdy to die easily.”

“I fear for us all my friend, for all that I agree that you will not die easily.”

“Legolas,” the dwarf said, gently.

“Yes?”

“All will be well. And soon enough, we shall be standing under a clear sky, where stars may shine and men and elves and little hobbits may wander the earth as they please. Do not lose hope.”

“You comfort me, Gimli. For you, I shall not.”

 ****

—

Legolas nearly wept for joy to find Gimli alive, well and sharpening his axe on a pile of dead orcs. He had not wanted to believe him lost.

Gimli gave him a quick, knowing grin, and stood.

“Come elf, our work is not done yet.”

“Would that it were,” Legolas said simply, “I could stand to find some place to sleep.”

“Aye,” Gimli sighed, “Would that we could. But you and I, elf, are in better shape than most of the men and all of the elves. And someone must collect the wounded and ensure that the dead remain unrisen. The battle is won, but the presence of Mordor lingers, and none would fight this battle twice.”

“Yes,” Legolas said wearily, “and none would fight the  man that, but hours earlier, he sought to defend.”

It was grim work, but quiet and repetitive, which meant that Legolas had time to think. He would not have, if he could have contrived a conversation, but amidst the death and the exhaustion of battle, he did not have the strength to speak.

This was a new thing, the aftermath of battle. The elves of the Greenwood did not often battle, and there were simply not enough of them to leave the kind of carnage that lingered on at Helm’s Deep. And none of them would have risen if left untended.

It was not an easy thing to stand here, laying out corpses that their families might find them in the end, mechanically cutting off heads and breaking limbs, that the bodies might wait for the pyre, and not think of how easily it might have come to pass that someone he knew (Gimli, his mind whispered, Gimli) would lie here, arms broken and head torn.

It was not done, in the Greenwood, to go into battle with the thought of what one had to lose.

Loss was not the elven way. If an elf were to decide that the world underneath the curse of Sauron was not tolerable, if they wanted breathing air and trees that did not twist and stagnate under the feeble red sun, they would cross the ocean. Their family would be left behind, but not forever. All would cross the sea in time, and there were few outright deaths.

At least, few outright deaths among those Legolas knew.

That would change now, he thought ruefully. Aragorn lived long in the estimation of man, but it would be the blink of an eye to an elf.

Gimli, caught in his metal skin, might live longer than the average dwarf, but how long, Legolas suspected that even Gimli himself could not say.

In time, even metal must rust. In time, even stone must crumble.

And every season, the leaves of the oldest trees in the Greenwood changed.

In this moment, Legolas understood why his kind would not make friends of the mortal races.

“We must seem so frail to you,” Gimli mused.

“Not so frail,” Legolas hedged, “Look there. Elves fell as easily as mortals under the new weapons of the Uruk-Hai. Had Gandalf not brought the wrath of the forest upon them, none would have survived.”

“It is almost a thing of wonder, their weapons. One wonders how they managed to make metal fly at those speeds.”

“You may wonder. I am no engineer, and so I shall simply be grateful that they did little to the Ents.”

“I shall be grateful to never see them again. The trees do not like Sauron, methinks, and they see him in every being that does not flit about their forests with joy.”

“They see him in every being that carries an axe. I am glad, Gimli, that Gandalf arrived as soon as he did in Fangorn. I might not have been able to convince them that you were no enemy.”

“And yet you made the attempt.”

“I could not have let you die, Gimli. You are dear to me.”

“I-”

It was at that moment that Mithrandir swept into their presence.

“Come,” he boomed, “We have business with Saruman and little time to stand around the battlefield. Leave those tasks to the men of Rohan, and let us away to Isengard.”

Legolas respected the wizard as much as any elf could. But he did acknowledge that sometimes, Mithrandir had the worst timing.

—

On the eve of the battle, they sat under the ember-bright sky, the smoke of Mordor’s army bruising one horizon.

“I find myself thinking,” Legolas chanced, and winced at his voice, unfamiliar and rusty under the mask that was his only shield against the Miasma of Mordor “of a story I once took a small part in. There was an elf-maid named Tauriel, with hair bright as flame, and I thought her more beautiful than the stars themselves.”

“I think I have heard this tale,” Gimli rumbled, “although in a different form. You see, I once had a cousin named Kili, and I thought him very dear to me. I was saddened when he left on a quest to regain our lost homeland, and he left me behind.”

“So the dwarves tell this tale also,” Legolas murmured. “I had wondered.”

“The tales of star-crossed lovers are always popular,” Gimli murmured dryly, “as are those that tell of the death of a beloved prince. I see why you may be thinking of this story tonight, Legolas.”

“It is the eve of a great battle,” Legolas hedged, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Indeed. And yet, I find myself thinking of the lesson my mother sought to impart when she relayed the story to a younger me. Once, I thought that it meant that dwarves and elves were never meant to get along, that the very heavens would unite to end such an abhorrence.”

He chuckled.

“I was a naive child. I think now, that my mother was telling me the story of something else. Do the tales of the elves have them dying in each other’s arms, as the tales of the dwarves do?”

“They do not. Our storytellers speak instead of a single, elegant touch of hands on the deathbed, of lovers reaching out for one last glimpse of one another before they died.”

“Very poetic.”

“It was intended to be.”

“I think in the end, my mother never meant that the two of them regretted their love. She simply meant to warn me, as mothers do, about the dangers of love. And being a wise old dwarrowdam, she knew full well I would end up ignoring her someday. I think her lesson lies in a rather simpler place - the reminder that it is all too easy to lose one you love, and far too prideful to reveal yourself to your One on the eve of a battle. It would just be asking to lose them, I think.”

Legolas relaxed against the wall, beaming at the glaring red sky. Of course. He had not doubted, but he had not known.

“And you dismiss the elves as too poetic,” he murmured. “So then, what do you say they ought have done?”

“Waited,” Gimli replied promptly. “Until the dragon was defeated, and the battle was won, and the world was saved. And then, brought our races together to fight against Sauron as one. One of them was a prince, the other well-respected. A union between them might have done our people much good. ”

“That,” Legolas grinned, “was the most entirely unromantic marriage proposal I have ever heard.”

“I have proposed nothing.” Gimli grumbled, “And I was hardly talking about you, flighty, empty-headed thing that you are.”

“Ah, but if you and I entered this conversation with the same aim, then if not talking about me, you were indeed talking about us.”

“I might have been. That does not mean anything. Anyways, what will your father say?”

“The same things that yours will, and more besides, I should think. And I will reply just as you will.”

“That you were sorry to have troubled him?”

“That I do not care,” Legolas said, and swept Gimli up in a kiss.

 ****

—

“You what,” Thranduil growled.

Legolas presented his father with the most innocent facial expression that he had in his repertoire, and firmed his grip on Gimli’s reluctant shoulder.

“I fought the forces of evil, and I return with my companion in the fight. It is due in part to him that our forest may again see the light of the true sun.”

“But he is -”

“A warrior. My friend and more.”

“And if,” Thranduil said, “I told you that this was not to be. That dwarves and elves would never stand together in my halls?”

“Then we would go,” Legolas said simply, “For a hall wherein we could not stand together is one in which I could not stay.”

“You have changed, son.”

“For the better.”

“Perhaps. In light of our victory, though, I would hear you out.”

Legolas glanced at Gimli, who gave him a quick, sharp smile. They had planned for resistance.

\--

And so it came to pass that between the elves and the dwarves, there grew a new friendship. Perhaps Gimli and Legolas began it, but it was the artisans and those working to restore the damage that the Ring had done who who chose to foster it, for the union of all that both races had learned from their years of defense was greater in strength than what either had achieved on its own.

But as for Gimli and Legolas, they lived long, and although they might not always have been happy, they were together and the better for it.

And when, in the end, Legolas set sail for the sea, Gimli went with him, for they had chosen to live as one long ago, and neither could think of leaving the other behind.

 


End file.
